The Italian's Final Redemption - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,4

though, that she should come here. That she should blunder through his doors seeking him. His security had informed him of her presence the moment she’d set foot in his family’s auction house and despite his inclination to have her instantly taken and imprisoned, since her arrival was the kind of windfall he couldn’t pass up, he’d decided to let whatever she was here for play out.

Raoul needed the practice in dealing with difficulties anyway.

Lucy Armstrong took another step forward, still holding his gaze. There was a certain ferocity to her, a determination that on another day he might have admired.

But he wasn’t going to admire her. She was Armstrong’s partner in crime, fully complicit in his evil empire, and so he would use her instead. Get her to reveal all her father’s secrets, and once Armstrong was in prison, where he belonged, she would join him.

‘Mr de Santi—’ she began yet again, her voice low and slightly husky.

‘Don’t worry, Miss Armstrong,’ he interrupted. ‘Your father’s men won’t even get through the front door. My security is excellent.’ And it was, because it needed to be.

When you were conducting a crusade against the most powerful crime families in Europe, having people try to kill you was an everyday occurrence.

It didn’t bother him. If people were trying to kill him it meant he was doing something right.

‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘He will—’

‘No.’ Vincenzo didn’t raise his voice, didn’t put any emphasis on it. Just let it cut across her, cold as an icicle. ‘He will not.’

Her mouth opened then closed. It was, Vincenzo couldn’t help noticing, a rather full and soft-looking mouth.

‘Now,’ he went on, dismissing the observation and nodding at the chair near his desk. ‘Sit.’

She frowned, a deep crease between two straight dark brows, and he thought she might be working herself up to argue with him. But, clearly thinking better of it, she did as she was told, holding her worn handbag protectively in her lap.

He tilted his head, studying her. She was still very afraid. He could almost smell it on her. He was a connoisseur of fear. He knew how it worked and what it did to people, and how it could be used to manipulate them. He himself didn’t use it that way, since that was an approach he loathed above all others. But he wasn’t averse to people letting themselves be manipulated by their own emotions. And he was constantly amazed by the fact that they did.

Another reason, if he needed one, that it wasn’t a gun that would kill you, it was fear. Or hate. Or anger. Or love. Emotions were far more dangerous than any weapon.

‘Explain,’ he said, finally breaking the silence that had fallen. ‘Why are you here, Miss Armstrong? Apart from throwing yourself on my non-existent mercy?’

She was sitting in the chair completely rigid, almost vibrating with tension. ‘But my father’s men will be here any minute.’

Fear, again. And she was right to be scared. Coming to him directly would be a betrayal her father would not forgive.

He glanced at his computer screen and, sure enough, she wasn’t wrong. Some of Armstrong’s thugs were already at the doors of the auction house.

Vincenzo touched a button on his keyboard and swivelled the screen around so it was in front of her. ‘Top right-hand corner is a camera feed of the front of the building. As you can see, your father’s men are already here. But they are being dealt with.’

It was clear he’d get nothing out of her until she was satisfied that she was safe from her father, so he might as well let her watch the proceedings. It would also serve as a good reminder to her that he was no less dangerous.

She watched the camera feed avidly, her eyes unblinking from behind her glasses. She didn’t move, clutching her handbag and looking like nothing so much as a small brown owl.

Fanciful of him. And he wasn’t given to fancies. Nor was he given to mercy for small, unremarkable women, who also happened to be accessories to the crimes committed by their father.

Really, he didn’t know why he was letting her sit there watching a feed of his security team dealing with her father’s men. Especially when what he should be doing was to call his head of Security and get Alessio to hand her over to the British police immediately. After all, if his crusade against the crime families of Europe had taught him anything it was